“On the occasion of my first visit at the house of the Fox sisters, then living in Prospect Street, Rochester, I mentioned casually that my wife was afflicted with a very severe and troublesome cough. Nothing more was said about it at the time, but as we sat quietly conversing with and about the ‘Spirits,’ Leah seemed suddenly entranced and said, ‘I’m going to cure Rebecca’s cough.’ It was no sooner said than done. She visited her mentally and described her accurately, and pronounced her cured. I returned to my home (Auburn) and found her entirely well. I expressed surprise, and asked her how she became so suddenly cured? She said she did not herself understand it, as her cough had left her since ‘night before last.’ Her cough was cured and never returned.
Note.—I will add that the cough was transferred to myself with equal violence to that which had tormented Mrs. Capron. My family at times feared that I might rupture a blood-vessel. (Why did the Spirits not relieve me too?) It lasted for about a week, when my mother sent for Professor E. C. Rogers, a powerful mesmerizer who happened to be lecturing in Rochester at the time, who by his magnetic power and manipulations gave me prompt and complete relief. He was not a “Spiritualist,” nor am I able to say exactly what his philosophy was. He afterward published an 8vo volume of about 330 pages, entitled, “Philosophy of Mysterious Agents, Human and Mundane; or, Dynamic Laws and Relations of Man,” etc.
A. L. U.
II.
WIFE OF GENERAL WADDY THOMPSON, OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
General Waddy Thompson was a widower when I first knew him (he had met my mother and sisters in Washington, in 1852). Subsequently he attended my séances frequently. On the occasion I now speak of (in the fall of 1857), he called to make an engagement with me to see him and his young, second wife, who was an invalid. As they were going to start for home the next morning, he wished to come that afternoon. It was cold, and the snow and frozen rain came down heavily, but at the appointed time a carriage drove to the door, and Mrs. Thompson was carried into the house by two men. She was beautiful alike in person and in character. Her lameness and great suffering, which she had endured for over four years, had had their origin in milk fever, which had settled in her leg, and had baffled the skill of the most renowned physicians of Europe and America.
The manifestations of Spirit presence came freely, and very soon Mrs. Thompson cried out, “Oh! something is taking hold of my limbs with hands!” The General begged her to sit still, saying, “Do not stir, my dear; it is your Spirit guardian who loves you.” She wept and called on her mother’s Spirit to come, saying, “Dear mother, I want you to go with me where I go, and watch over us all.”
Mrs. Thompson was cured, and walked back without difficulty from Ludlow Place to the St. Nicholas Hotel.
Two years later, in 1859, she and her lovely sister, Miss Jones, accompanied the General to New York, and on learning that it was our reception night, came to enjoy the evening with us, and related the circumstances before a very large party.